Month: May 2017

Urban fantasy review: ‘Rivers of Hell’ by Marina Finlayson

Urban fantasy review: ‘Rivers of Hell’ by Marina Finlayson

This is the third of the Shadows of the Immortals series, and it’s another action-packed and dramatic installment. This one is, as you might suspect from the title, set in the underworld, as Lexi and friends try to remove the magical collars that restrict the powers of god Apollo and Lexi’s cat-shifter friend, Syl. As always, there are plenty of twists and turns along the way, and Lexi and hot fireshaper Jake inch a little closer towards the inevitable romance. Now, I’m going to be honest. I’ve never read a bad book by Finlayson yet, and this one doesn’t break that winning streak. It’s the usual well-written roller-coaster ride, lurching from one crisis to the next, yet always in a way that makes total sense within this world, and with that trade-mark Aussie humour – lovely! But… It lacks many of the elements that made the previous two books amongst […]

Posted May 25, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

Review: ‘Dark Voyage’ by Alan Furst

Review: ‘Dark Voyage’ by Alan Furst

My book group throws up a mixed bag of reading materials, and I never quite know what I’m going to get. This one seemed most unpromising at first glance: a war-era story of spies and secret missions aboard a Dutch freighter commandeered by British intelligence. Um… not really my thing. But after I chickened out of a few, I’m determined to have a crack at everything from now on so I settled down to read. And (surprise!) I really enjoyed it. It’s very much a boy’s own adventure, with lots of creeping about in the dark, secretly repainting the ship to disguise it (not an easy task), and never quite knowing who is on who’s side or what the ultimate objective is. There are some truly thrilling moments steering through minefields or arriving at a neutral port to find that it’s changed allegiance overnight. There are also laugh-out-loud funny moments, […]

Posted May 25, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in Review / 0 Comments

I’m in SPFBO! Again!

I’m in SPFBO! Again!

For the third year running, Mark Lawrence (author of the Broken Empire series) is organising a contest for self-published authors. He’s rounded up 10 bloggers who read and review fantasy books, usually traditionally published, and 300 books submitted by self-published authors, and thrown the two groups together. Each blogger gets a ‘slush pile’ of 30 books to whittle down over six months to just one to go forward into the final. Then the ten bloggers read all ten finalists and score them, to come up with an overall winner. And for the third year running, I’ve submitted one of my books. The first year, Bookworm Blues blogger Sarah Chorn looked at The Plains of Kallanash (she gave it 3/5 stars). The second year, Sarah looked at The Mages of Bennamore (she gave it 3/5 stars – I think we can see a pattern here!). This year, I’ve submitted The Dragon’s […]

Posted May 15, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in SPFBO, The Dragon's Egg / 2 Comments

Authors answer 21: What is your ultimate goal with your writing? Fame? Fortune? Changing the world?

This is going to sound like a cop-out, but I really don’t have a goal except to get the books out there in the world where they can be read. Fame? No, absolutely not! {Shudder} I’m the ultimate reclusive writer. I haven’t even told most of my real life friends or family that I write. It amuses me, actually, to meet people on a regular basis who have no idea at all about it. We have the usual back and forth — how are you, what have you been up to, oh, nothing much — and I could say, well, I published my fourteenth book the other day, so bit of a celebration, and I have a promotion on the box set and then there’s the audio… But I never do. Fortune? A little bit more money never goes amiss, but I wouldn’t want enough to need accountants and investment […]

Posted May 5, 2017 by PaulineMRoss in AuthorsAnswer / 0 Comments